Strategies for Building the Therapeutic Alliance More Easily

We all know therapists who seem magically able to establish a powerful sense of trust and connection with even the most distrusting clients. But are there specific behaviors common to exceptionally gifted therapists that we can study, practice, and cultivate?

Repairing the Parent-Child Bond is a Two-Way Street

By Dafna Lender - When difficulties arise between parent and child, most therapists naturally focus treatment on the child. But the parent–child bond is a two-way street, and parents come with their own history. In these situations, I can often find ways to help parents and children connect through attachment-based games that involve elements of silliness, movement, and surprise.

Four Behaviors of Gifted Therapists and How to Cultivate Them

By Dafna Lender - We’ve now moved past the point where we rely only on intuition to elicit trust and openness. Microbehaviors occur within fractions of a second, most of them not conscious to the sender or receiver, and some greatly contribute to inspiring feelings of safety, connection, and comfort. Here are four ways these emotional messages are transmitted.

How to Harness Your Social Engagement System

We all know people who have the magic touch when it comes to relating to others. They can instantly connect with strangers and put people at ease without even saying a word. Therapists with this ability have a natural advantage, so are there specific behaviors we can practice to elicit trust and openness? Luckily, the answer is yes—and Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory provides the key.

How to Use a Fast Road to Connection with Children

By Dafna Lender - If my experience is any indication, most beginning therapists are also offered little to no basic training in clinical work with kids. Why is this? The kinds of interventions that are most effective with children are based in play. Play is a remarkably powerful therapeutic tool, backed up by cutting-edge research, and teaching families how to apply it at home can bring about profound systemic changes.

The Challenge of Embracing Our Youngest Clients

Although they make up nearly a quarter of the population, children are rarely a central part of therapists’ practices. Why? The most effective interventions are based in play, an approach that seems less sophisticated than purportedly deep and transformative adult-centered talk therapies. It’s time to give play therapy the fuller attention and expanded application that it deserves.

Strategies for Building the Therapeutic Alliance More Easily

We all know therapists who seem magically able to establish a powerful sense of trust and connection with even the most distrusting clients. But are there specific behaviors common to exceptionally gifted therapists that we can study, practice, and cultivate?

Repairing the Parent-Child Bond is a Two-Way Street

By Dafna Lender - When difficulties arise between parent and child, most therapists naturally focus treatment on the child. But the parent–child bond is a two-way street, and parents come with their own history. In these situations, I can often find ways to help parents and children connect through attachment-based games that involve elements of silliness, movement, and surprise.

Four Behaviors of Gifted Therapists and How to Cultivate Them

By Dafna Lender - We’ve now moved past the point where we rely only on intuition to elicit trust and openness. Microbehaviors occur within fractions of a second, most of them not conscious to the sender or receiver, and some greatly contribute to inspiring feelings of safety, connection, and comfort. Here are four ways these emotional messages are transmitted.

How to Use a Fast Road to Connection with Children

By Dafna Lender - If my experience is any indication, most beginning therapists are also offered little to no basic training in clinical work with kids. Why is this? The kinds of interventions that are most effective with children are based in play. Play is a remarkably powerful therapeutic tool, backed up by cutting-edge research, and teaching families how to apply it at home can bring about profound systemic changes.

How to Harness Your Social Engagement System

We all know people who have the magic touch when it comes to relating to others. They can instantly connect with strangers and put people at ease without even saying a word. Therapists with this ability have a natural advantage, so are there specific behaviors we can practice to elicit trust and openness? Luckily, the answer is yes—and Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory provides the key.

The Challenge of Embracing Our Youngest Clients

Although they make up nearly a quarter of the population, children are rarely a central part of therapists’ practices. Why? The most effective interventions are based in play, an approach that seems less sophisticated than purportedly deep and transformative adult-centered talk therapies. It’s time to give play therapy the fuller attention and expanded application that it deserves.

Dafna Lender, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in the field of child welfare and child mental health for 20+ years. Dafna serves as the program director at The Theraplay Institute in Evanston, IL and is certified as a practitioner, supervisor and trainer in both Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). Dafna trains psychotherapists internationally in these methods and trains in three languages.

Dafna’s focus is children’s development of a secure attachment with their caregivers while resolving issues in their traumatic history. Early in her career, Dafna worked in treatment foster care and witnessed child after child “fail” out of foster placements due to difficult behavior. Children were disruptive, unsettled and unhappy, and their caregivers felt defeated. Dafna’s sense of discouragement went way after taking the Theraplay training and learning direct, concrete ideas and interactions that she could apply in home with her treatment families to promote healthier, stable relationships. Dafna has successfully treated children with a variety of backgrounds, including children raised in orphanages, with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, exposed to domestic violence and community violence and children of parents with chronic mental illness.